The following invention relates to a method and system for presenting financial information and, in particular, to the visual presentation of financial information using a geographic orientation.
Accurate and timely analysis of financial information is essential for profiting in the financial markets. As the volume of financial information generated by market activity increases, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to analyze all the relevant information in order to take advantage of market movements and trends. Techniques and systems that organize and analyze financial information and help spot market trends are therefore highly desirable.
One prior art method for organizing financial information is the use of heatmaps. For example, Neovision (http://www.neovision.com/) provides heatmaps that represent selected financial indicators as color-coded cells in which the color and shade of color of a particular cell is related to the percent gain/loss for the financial indicator represented by that cell. If a heatmap includes a color coded cell representing, for example, IBM Corp. shares and IBM Corp. shares are trading up 2% on a particular day, then the IBM cell may be colored a light shade of blue to indicate a 2% gain. If IBM shares go up 4%, then the IBM cell may be colored a medium shade of blue. If however, IBM goes down 2%, the IBM cell may be colored a light shade of red to indicate a 2% drop. The heatmap continuously updates the color coding and shading of the cells based on changes in the underlying instrument.
In addition to the use of color codings and shadings, the size of a cell in the heatmap may be adjusted based on, for example, the market capitalization of the instrument represented by the cell relative to other instruments in a particular sector. For example, SmartMoney (http://www.smartmoney.com/marketmap/) provides a heatmap in which cells representing stocks are grouped by sectors, such as technology and health care. Within the technology sector, for instance, a cell representing Intel shares is color-coded and shaded according to its performance at that time and the size of the Intel cell indicates its market capitalization relative to other stocks in the technology sector.
The SmartMoney heatmap also provides more detailed information about an instrument represented by a particular cell. For example, by moving a pointer (for e.g. controlled by a computer mouse) over the Intel cell, the last sale price of Intel shares, the dollar amount up/down and additional information pertaining to Intel is available.
A drawback of the prior art heatmaps is that they only label the cells that represent financial indicators with the name of the financial indicator and, as in the case of the SmartMoney heatmap, aggregate the cells that represent financial indicators within the same sector. However, the prior art heatmaps do not present financial information in a geographic manner. Geographic information often proves very valuable to a trader or investor. For example, an equity trader may own numerous options positions, each of which may be based on a different country's stock index, such as the Nikkei 225 stock index and the S&P 500 stock index. Because the trader tracks many indices to monitor the trader's positions, labeling each country index with only the name of the index requires the trader to read the name of the index and then associate the name with the related country. Because traders must act quickly to be effective in spotting trends, any delay in the trader being able to assimilate vital information must be avoided. Thus, prior art heatmaps fail to present financial information using a geographic orientation thereby placing the trader at a disadvantage.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a visual presentation of financial information using a geographic orientation.